[amsat-bb] Using AO-85 Transponder

I attempted two passes of AO-85 from DO20 after Jerry's email regarding activation of the transponder.

During the first attempt with an Alinco HT at 0447 UTC I didn't get into the bird (approx 4 watts into an Arrow antenna). I was, however, able to copy AC0RA for most of the latter half of the pass.

I tried again at 0629 UTC using 20 watts TX power on an FT-857 (and the Arrow). This time I was able to get into the sat from within a degree or two of AOS to about 6 degrees near LOS. It took a fair bit of playing with the TX frequency and antenna polarization. Unfortunately nobody else was on :-(

One thing I noticed on both passes was that I had to tune my RX frequency down by 5 KHz during the last quarter of the pass.

Regards, Bill VE6WK